With core intact, big things possible for Bruins

Fresh off a summer shakeup that turned over nearly a third of their roster, the Boston Bruins open their 90th NHL season on Thursday night at home against Tampa Bay.

Mark Divver Assistant Sports Editor markdivver

Fresh off a summer shakeup that turned over nearly a third of their roster, the Boston Bruins open their 90th NHL season on Thursday night at home against Tampa Bay.

Though a number of the faces have changed, the Bruins will continue to mix underrated skill with unsurpassed toughness and once again will be one of the top teams in the league. They will lean heavily on a battle-tested core group that already owns one Stanley Cup championship.

Nathan Horton, Tyler Seguin, Jaromir Jagr, Andrew Ference, Rich Peverley and Anton Khudobin, all of whom were in the lineup for Boston’s Game Six loss to Chicago in the Stanley Cup finals on June 24, departed over the summer. But, thanks to general manager Peter Chiarelli’s offseason wheeling and dealing, the Bruins appear to be a stronger, deeper team than they were last year.

It’s certainly no surprise that Boston is one of the favorites to win the 2014 Stanley Cup — along with defending champ Chicago, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

Up front, the addition of wingers Loui Eriksson and Jarome Iginla to Boston’s first two lines should make the Bruins’ offense — and especially the power play — more dangerous. On defense, youngsters Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton and Matt Bartkowski should give Boston a much-needed injection of speed and offense.

As an organization, the Bruins are as deep as they’ve been in years, with good players such as Nick Johnson, Ryan Spooner and Niklas Svedberg sent to Providence even after very strong performances in training camp.

“From an organizational standpoint, I do believe that the depth of our group is strong,” assistant general manager Don Sweeney said while watching the P-Bruins practice at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on Wednesday morning.

“We’ve got an injury right off the hop (Carl Soderberg, ankle), so it’s going to get tested, as it will be throughout the year. … We’ve lost some very key parts of our hockey club. Andy Ference is a tremendous leader. Obviously a testament to that was him being named captain (in Edmonton). Nathan Horton will be missed.

“But we hope we’ve blended some guys in that can fill those roles. We’ve got young players that will have an opportunity to step up — certainly on the back end. There’s three of them there that need to push forward. We’ll see how that shakes out.”

Here are three storylines to watch this season, as well as a prediction:

The power play

It’s no secret that Boston’s power play has been missing in action for much of the last few seasons. It’s still head-scratcher that the Bruins were able to win the Cup in 2011 despite rarely scoring with the man-advantage situations in the playoffs.

But the Bruins’ production with the man advantage is expected to take a big step forward this season. The addition of Eriksson and Iginla up front and the availability of Krug for a full season to move the puck up the ice and walk the line in the opponent’s end should make the Bruins much more of a threat.

One interesting early wrinkle by the coaching staff was positioning Zdeno Chara in front of the net for tips and screens instead of at the blue line. The 6-foot-9 defenseman chipped in two power-play goals from in close.

The power play showed improvement during the preseason, in which the Bruins won six of seven games. Boston clicked on 7 of 33 PP chances, for a success rate of 21.2 percent, 11th in the league.

The third line

Before an ankle injury late in camp to Soderberg, third-line pivot Chris Kelly had two new wings in Reilly Smith (acquired in the Seguin trade) and Soderberg, who has now been replaced by Jordan Caron.

The dependable Kelly started last season between Rich Peverley and Chris Bourque. But the line struggled almost from the beginning, forcing Chiarelli into an offseason makeover.

The injury to Soderberg gives Caron yet another opportunity to establish himself as an NHL player. It will be interesting to see if either Caron or Soderberg is given a longer leash than Bourque, who the Bruins gave up on after just 18 games.

Soderberg, who is still adjusting to the much smaller NHL ice surface after a long career spent on more spacious European rinks, could find himself on the bad side of coach Claude Julien unless he can find some consistency.

On the other wing, expect Smith, a standout at Miami University, to emerge as a solid NHL player with a good offensive touch.

The young D

When Ference and Dennis Seidenberg went down with injuries in the playoffs last spring, the Bruins had little choice but to turn to Providence call-ups Krug and Bartkowski.

Both young defensemen stepped in and delivered unexpectedly good performances. Their skating ability opened up Boston’s game and allowed the Bruins easier exits from their end of the ice. With four playoff goals, Krug became one of the stars of the postseason.

Now Krug and Bartkowski — as well as promising second-year man Hamilton, who is still less than four months past his 20th birthday — will be expected to take their games to a higher level. Kevan Miller, a gritty 25-year-old rookie, is in the mix, too.

It remains to be seen how playing time will be divided, but it’s better to have a surplus of talented young defensemen than not enough.

Prediction

Superbly coached by Julien, the Bruins will finish at or near the top of the Atlantic Division, which now features four Original Six franchises with the addition of Detroit this season. Barring injuries, they will make a serious run at the seventh Stanley Cup in franchise history.